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[kliffen]

I've been looking to buy a few graphics cards recently, and I think I managed to find a couple bargins. I bought a HD5830 for $80, and am In the process of buying a 5970 for $220. Going to test it tomorrow or the next day before I purchase.

My question is, where to from here.

What is the cheapest, easiest system that I could put together to get the cards up and running as soon as possible?

I realise that I'll need a hefty power supply, and I'd like to leave a little room for expansion, so if possible a mobo with a third slot would be good. Although if it's gunna be expensive, then two slots would be fine for now.

Cheers

Congrats on the cards! $300 for both is a very good deal

The cheapest way is to use the cheapest motherboard you can find, buy a AMD sempron to go with it and use a riser on your 5830. (this -> http://www.dealextreme.com/p/pci-e-1x-to-16x-riser-card-extension-cable-15-5cm-length-100061
If you wanna be megacheap, buy a 8 GB USB stick and put a bootable OS on it. ram is whatever (buy a 1-2 GB stick and you're fine).
PSU, yeah. You have 2 cards now that draw some power, no doubt. About 500W combined for the cards and 50-100W for the system should cover it, with more to go. That's 600W draw, so a 750W PSU would do fine. I would reccomend this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371051&cm_sp=Cat_Power_Supplies-_-Spotlight-_-17-371-051
As with expansion. More risers when you get more cards, up to 4 cards without any hazzle. You can use multiple PSUs on the same system, so whenever you need more cards, just buy another PSU and all is well

Sorry if this was all messy, i'm really tired

[racerguy]

I think i'm the guy you got the 5830 off(bought it a week earlier for 70$ delivered).  I tested it for a night before I sent it to you mining on the ozcoin pool, and reached 290mhash/s on stock volts, can't remember if I overclocked it any but I did underclock the mem to 300mhz.  Going by your address I'm guess you have free power so it might be worth it to overvolt a little and thrash it.  Good luck

[dropt]

I've been looking to buy a few graphics cards recently, and I think I managed to find a couple bargins. I bought a HD5830 for $80, and am In the process of buying a 5970 for $220. Going to test it tomorrow or the next day before I purchase.

My question is, where to from here.

What is the cheapest, easiest system that I could put together to get the cards up and running as soon as possible?

I realise that I'll need a hefty power supply, and I'd like to leave a little room for expansion, so if possible a mobo with a third slot would be good. Although if it's gunna be expensive, then two slots would be fine for now.

Cheers

You mention you want some room to expand.  If that's the case then think about what you might want to add, or if at some point you're going to change out that 5830 for something with a little more bang.  If you think you'll work your way up to 3 5970's, get a ~1200watt PSU.  If you think you're going to stick with the one 5970 and fill the other slot with some other single GPU card, I'd suggest an 850w.   Noteable point:  Efficiency decreases as you near the rated output wattage, so ideally you'll want to have your total load be somewhere around 80% of the rated capacity.  This is not a rule, but a best case scenario.

PS:  Don't cheap out on the PSU   Do some research as to who makes what and their quality rankings. (FWIW, I use XFX and am extremely happy with them)